


Tides

by JudeAraya



Series: Fade To Black [7]
Category: Glee
Genre: Communication, Fingering, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:53:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an emotional one night stand on Valentines Day, Blaine keeps his promise to fight for reconciliation. Chronicles Kurt and Blaine’s journey as they re-learn each other, navigating the complicated ties between honesty, emotional intimacy and physical intimacy, and their promises to renew a future together.</p>
<p>Beautiful Art: <a href="http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/JudeAraya/media/kbb_zps6f4bfb43.jpg.html"></a><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tides

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows Comedown, Clarity in the Fade to Black verse. I want to say that anyone who found Comedown too hard to read, this story can be read independently. If you want a summary, you can message me, I would love to answer questions. Thank you to crissclofer for her beautiful art, and to IconikKlaine for the wonderful beta, as well as to Anxioussquirrel and januarium for being amazing test readers.
> 
> Warning: this fic contains discussion of mental illness and depiction of a small panic attack

** February **

****

** February 17th **

 

_Blaine: You get home okay?_

 

**Kurt: Yes, Blaine. About four seconds ago.**

 

_Blaine: oh._

 

_Blaine: Sorry_

 

**Kurt: Don’t be sorry :D  you were just fast. I have to go claim my bags. ttyl**

 

**~*~**

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: February 20, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: Confession_

 

_Kurt --_

 

_I know you’re busy. And that the way we left things was… well. I meant what I said. I’m not giving up on us._

 

_In the spirit of making this work, I’m going to work on being honest in ways I maybe wasn’t as much before._

 

_So here goes._

 

_Sometimes I feel really alone here, even with friends. Well, not just here. But always._

 

_\- Blaine_

 

Kurt sits back and reads the simple email again. Thinks of Blaine’s promise to keep trying and fighting for them and wonders how this fits in. Honestly? He can’t ever remember Blaine being so plain about things that hurt him. He has always been the kind of person to couch pain in so many other ways.

 

Simple words, but they hurt quite deeply inside him too.

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: February 20, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: Confession_

 

_B-_

 

_Why don’t I call you when I’m done with work? I’m so sorry I can’t call you right now, there’s so much pressure to balance work with school. I’m so swamped._

 

Kurt bites his lip.

 

_I’ll call you at 5:30?_

 

_XOXO_

 

_*_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: February 20, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: Confession_

 

_To Kurt_

 

_That’s fine._

 

_B_

 

~*~

 

Blaine sets his phone down next to his laptop. It’s nearing 5:30, but a part of him doesn’t really expect Kurt to call, or to call in time. He doesn’t want to expect anything really, but he hopes, which is its own kind of agony. He said he’ll never stop fighting, which included making himself vulnerable and accessible to Kurt. He’ll tell him what he needs, despite naked the anxiety rising like tides already crashing in.

 

His phone buzzes.

 

~*~

 

**March and April**

 

**Kurt: THERE’S NEVER ENOUGH TIME.**

 

_Blaine: oh no, what’s going on? need me to call?_

 

**Kurt: I am so sorry, I just don’t have time. I messed up at work. I suck at dance. I have so much to do.**

 

_Blaine: Okay_.

 

**Kurt: Please don’t be mad.  This is not about you, I promise.**

 

_Blaine: I’m not! I am here if you need. I love you._

 

~*~

 

“So then she said that my opinion didn’t really count because everyone knows that Isabelle favors me but that I haven’t earned it--”

 

“Kurt--” Blaine interrupts softly.

 

“Which is sort of true but honestly, that doesn’t make the fact that her ideas were hideous and--”

 

“ _Kurt--”_

 

_“_ Y-yeah? _”_ Kurt swallows back his rant.

 

“I called cause I needed to talk to someone.”

 

“Oh.” Kurt lets himself really listen to Blaine’s voice. “I’m sorry--I… okay. I’m listening.”

 

There is a long silence; he can hear Blaine breathing. Somehow, he can feel how hard this is for him. “Blaine,” he says softly, “I’m proud of you for making sure I am listening.”

 

~*~

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 5, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: Question_

 

_So spring break is coming up. I… I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I was hoping maybe… I could come visit?_

 

_At the risk of becoming a broken record, I’ll say again: I promised I’d never give up on us. I really think that if we could spend some time together, we can work this out. We belong together. I love you--god I love you so much sometimes I don’t know what to do with it. And I know you’re scared, but I also know that you love me too._

 

_I don’t mean to pressure you. I promised I’d not give up, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take as long as you need. I’m kind of… I guess I’m just going to take this risk because getting you back--even just the hope that it might work, is worth everything to me._

 

_Love always,_

 

_Blaine_

 

~*~

 

He breaks it off with Adam. Kurt tells himself it’s not because he’s getting back together with Blaine, and that nothing is definite.

 

But the truth is that when Adam kisses him, Kurt’s lips wish they were Blaine’s. That he feels that pull, that it pulls him away from Adam and that’s just not fair, not to either of them.

 

It hurts, and it leaves him scared. He’s not sure why he’s giving up potential for something he can’t trust he’ll be able to go back to. Kurt doesn’t want to end up alone, but in the end, his heart wasn’t made for casual. It was made for lifelong love.

 

It’s agony to know that his stupid, traitor heart insists that his lifelong love is Blaine.

 

~*~

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 7, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: Question_

 

_Dear Blaine-_

 

_I would love if you came. Just… I don’t know what will happen. Can we talk when we see each other? That honest talk we promised ourselves over Thanksgiving? I just don’t know…_

 

_Oh, but also, I have to work and go to classes, so you’ll be alone quite a bit… is that alright? You can get to know the Big Apple! I’ll even tell you the best places to go (and oh god, where you should never ever go or what to never eat). _

 

_Love,_

 

_Kurt._

 

Blaine smiles so wide when he reads the email, his face hurts a little. Too impatient to send an email, he fumbles with the keypad of his phone, typing too fast and having to delete half of it.

 

_Blaine: Anything. We can talk about anything, that can be all we do._

 

And then:

 

_Blaine: Well, no I mean I guess we’d have to eat and sleep as well. And see New York! I can’t wait to see New York._

 

He rethinks that text about one second after it’s been sent. There’s this feeling--he’s never known just what to call it, something like a stew of dread and shame and embarrassment and lots of just plain crappy. He’s felt it before, when he’d thought back to his less proud moments. He still can’t think about the Gap Attack without a swooping clang of it resounding in his belly.

 

But this is so much worse than remembering the Gap Attack. All the blood rushes from his face. He remembers Kurt at Callbacks, face bright, so-wide smile and it makes him sick, it juxtaposed with the memory of Kurt’s eyes filling with tears at Blaine’s confession **.** At the time all he’d seen was his own guilt, and how the happier Kurt was, the more guilt he felt.

 

Now all he can think is how it must have felt for Kurt, to come from that high, and to have the person you trusted that blindly, let you fall.

 

How… _what is he doing_? Why does he even think he’s worthy of this? What does he have to offer Kurt? He doesn’t deserve him.

 

Blaine’s phone chimes quietly, and he ignores it. It chimes again, then rings. He has a moment, when he sees Kurt’s face on his screen, when he has to decide: Answer it because he made a promise to always answer Kurt’s call, or ignore it. There’s an insidious voice in his head, the sly convincing fox that whispers, _it’s better this way. Prove you aren’t worth it._

 

**Kurt: I think I would love that.**

 

**Kurt: Blaine? Hey are you still there?**

 

Blaine shakes his head. Blaine shakes his head, battling that small part of him that still hates himself. He can’t let that be a reason to hurt Kurt. Or to punish himself.

 

_Blaine: Yeah, I’m here. Sorry._

 

He pauses, uncertain if he wants to tell Kurt what he’s thinking, if they are there yet. Maybe that is a heavy conversation to start via text.

 

_Blaine: So…_

 

He can’t help the smile. He’s going to see Kurt. Kurt who seems like maybe he’s open to getting back together.

 

_Blaine: I guess I’m looking for flights then._

 

**Kurt: :D**

 

~*~

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 9, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: Things I maybe shouldn’t say_

 

_Blaine,_

 

_I can’t sleep tonight. Normally the sounds of the city soothe me, but it’s all just so loud._

 

_Or maybe my thoughts are._

 

_I miss you. It’s so tempting…._

 

_Well, lets just say it’s tempting. But I lie awake, like tonight, and my heart starts beating so fast because I’m so scared. But I’m thinking (tonight, thinking and thinking and thinking) about it._

 

_If it were to happen -- if -- I think I’d need rules. Or something. Rules sounds wrong but I can’t think of what else to call them._

 

_I should probably go stare into the dark some more before I say something I might want to take back or change my mind about. 3am is never a good time for decision making._

 

_XO_

 

K

 

~*~

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 10, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: Things I maybe shouldn’t say_

 

_Kurt-_

 

_Did you try warm milk? I know it’s morning and too late for last night, but if you can’t sleep tonight, maybe try that? I hope you managed to get some sleep. I know you have a full day today._

 

_So by rules do you mean like, leave your shoes by the door rules, or like, don’t touch me at all and sleep on the couch rules?_

 

_I booked my flights! I’ll forward you my itinerary!_

 

_B_

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 10, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: Things I maybe shouldn’t say_

 

_Blainey-days-_

 

_(What? I heard Tina call you that. I almost cried from wanting to laugh.)_

 

_Umm, well neither example really was right, but let’s lean more toward the latter. I’m hesitant to really lay anything out, because I am worried that that will make it seem like things are decided, and I just… I’m not there yet._

 

_Kurt_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 11, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: What If_

 

_Kurtsie-_

 

_(what? aren’t we doing nicknames we *don’t* like?)_

 

_What if we played what if?_

 

_Blainers_

 

~*~

 

What if?

 

Kurt closes his eyes. Two in the morning and he has to work tomorrow. It seems like the closer Blaine’s visit looms, he sleeps less.

 

They used to sit with each other and play _What If_. Side by side, laying on one of their beds; Blaine would fiddle with Kurt’s fingers and they would dream. Spin such dreams, beautiful things, like spiderwebs jeweled with dew. So easily taken apart. The casual swipe of a hand and then gone.

 

He tries not to cry. When will he ever be cried out of this? How can he entertain, seriously, taking Blaine back, when it feels like he’ll never be done?

 

Blaine in these memories--it hurts, to think how naive they were, to think that spinning dreams meant living them. For him to have thought that those talks meant it would just happen. He’d been careless, trusting in them. Meanwhile Blaine he supposed, too scared and unable to trust them. Kurt had let himself be complacent because of that trust, and Blaine had needed more support.

 

But those memories--they don’t just hurt. They feel a little like home. Because the longer they’d been together, the more he’d trusted Blaine with even the most fantastic or wild fantasies he had for himself, for them, or life.

 

Kurt opens his eyes to the opaque night. He’s scared to trust Blaine won’t hurt him again, but also… he knows he’d never be scared to share his dreams with Blaine. That is a sort of trust that, now that he’s not as angry and disillusioned, he knows will always be there. Because his dreams weren’t just shared with his lover; they were shared with his best friend.

 

~*~

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 15, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE:What If_

 

_Blaine,_

 

_It’s funny how the more I thought about what I wanted to say, the closer it all felt to real. But in a way that’s starting to feel… right. And then I almost started the email with Sweetheart._

 

_I can’t stress enough that this isn’t a promise. But I’ve thought this through and…_

 

**_What if_ ** _we got back together?_

 

_No sex. Not at first. I just can’t Blaine. Last time was amazing, but knowing we were together like that, with everything between us, and not being together…_

 

_Please don’t take this personally because it’s not about you, but I left that room feeling ashamed. Like I’d let you on a bit. Like I’d pressured you, used you, and myself. That I’d used the connection we have the wrong way. I don’t know. I never, ever thought that intimacy with you would feel like that. And I just… I respect you and I respect myself and need to say that *if* we were to get back together_ , _I’d need us to take it slow._

 

_I’ll leave it at that for now. It took me longer than I thought to get this out, and I have to go to work._

 

_-K_

 

_*_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 15, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: What If_

 

_To Kurt,_

 

_I started with Honey, and had to delete it. If I’m being honest, that happens all the time. I am hoping, so so hard, that one day I can send you an email that starts with that._

 

_Absolutely. I don’t know that I would have thought of it, but you are right. And… I want to be honest. I think sex is more complicated for me than I ever let myself believe. I think that I need to be more careful, to know that I am always doing it for the right reasons. I don’t think that you used me or pressured me--I don’t think you could ever do that. But maybe the reasons weren’t right, for either of us._

 

_So yes._

 

_Can I play too?_

 

_What if I said that we both get a say in when we are ready?_

 

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

 

_Blaine_

 

_*_

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 16, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: What If_

 

_Blaine,_

 

_Oh! I had not thought that I--I didn’t mean to imply that it wouldn’t be a mutual decision!_

 

_What if you come to visit and I just can’t?_

 

_-K_

 

_*_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 17, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE:What If_

 

_What if I was really honest and...oh god, I am so scared, but… what if I said that I would be devastated, but that so long as you promise to always love me in some way for the rest of our lives, it would be okay?_

 

_*_

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 17, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: What If_

 

_No matter what Blaine, I will always love you. I never stopped, and I can’t imagine ever not._

 

_What if it takes longer than just this trip? If I was thinking yes, but still need more time?_

 

_*_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 17, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: What If_

 

_Until you tell me it’s definitely over, you can have all of my time. I want you and I want us more than anything, and I know I didn’t do it right the first time around, but I will wait._

 

_What if I admitted to you that staying in an apartment with Santana scares the crap out of me?_

 

_*_

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: March 18, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: What If_

 

_Living with Santana scares the crap out of me 80% of the time. No judgement, just commiseration._

 

_What if I told you I don’t know how *not* to be scared that you’ll hurt me again?_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: March 19, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: What If_

 

_I don’t know. I can’t promise that I won’t ever hurt you in any way again--as much as we both want, we can’t promise that to each other at all._

 

_But I can promise you two things: one, I will never, *ever* hurt you that way again. And two, I’ll do my best to not hurt you for the rest of our lives. It’s not a guarantee, but a promise to do my best._

_Love,_

 

_-B_

 

~*~

 

Kurt sits back in his work chair, hidden from the rest of the office. It is the tiniest, most cramped space in the whole office, which leaves him feeling claustrophobic most of the time. But sometimes, it is just right. It feels safe.

 

What if? What if, what if? His finger sweeps a nervous rhythm back and forth across his bottom lip, over and over, while his heart beats it’s usual slow beat, and his lungs insist on filling measured and steady.

 

It isn’t a _what if_ that scares him. At least not right now. It will. Probably from the moment he sees Blaine, through telling him, through everything after--frankly he’s not sure _when_ it’s going to stop feeling frightening.

 

But he can’t--he can’t live the with the _what if_ any more. If he’s being honest with himself, the what if hasn’t been, what if I decide to get back together with him? It’s been, what if I say no?

 

The answer to that is more heartbreak. A life that will always seem empty. Himself a shell, trying to fill his world with other people and other dreams, when the truth is that his heart will always belong to Blaine.

 

~*~

He doesn’t pick Blaine up at the airport--partly because that will cost money that’s tight, but also because he’s not sure how he’d handle that sort of airport reunion. The one that movies paint over the top and romantic, instead of loaded and awkward.

 

But when Blaine shows up at his door, it’s just as awkward as he’d been dreading. Kurt’s instinct is to kiss him, to tuck his face into the crook of Blaine’s neck and just smell. Instead they hug with angles, bodies held apart and insecurity of touch. The last time Kurt touched Blaine, there had been a rumpled bed and a goodbye that tasted like bitter on his tongue.

 

“How--” Kurt scoots aside and gestures lamely toward the interior of their apartment. “How was the flight?”

 

“Pretty average.” Unlike Kurt, Blaine’s never viewed airplane travel as an exciting novelty.

 

Blaine sets his suitcase by the door, eyes soaking the sight of Kurt’s apartment.

 

“May I?” Blaine’s head tilts and he gestures that he wants to come in.

 

Kurt smiles. “Of course!” he says.

 

It’s weird, to suddenly feel Blaine’s presence, his such large personality so vibrant in a space that’s been mostly only Kurt’s. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

 

~*~

 

“So are you two--?” Santana gestures toward them at dinner. Kurt feels the slight chill of deja vu.

 

“How’s the risotto?” Kurt interrupts. Blaine’s smile is tepid.

 

“Delicious, as always.”

 

Kurt steps deliberately on Santana’s foot, hoping that for once she’ll somehow know that confrontation won’t help him in anyway.

 

“I mean, cause you broke up with the Brit, so I figure you two are bumping uglies again.”

 

“ _Santana--_ ”

 

“Wait, you broke if off with him?” Blaine interrupts. Kurt’s not really sure how to read his face, isn’t sure he _wants_ to, because he’s not at all sure how he wants to handle any of this.

 

“Santana! Let’s watch a movie tonight. _Loudly_.” Rachel butts in, winking at Kurt and even Blaine has to roll his eyes.

 

“I can’t eavesdrop with a movie on,” Santana points out.

 

“Santana.” Kurt looks at her with pleading, voice soft.

 

“Yeah, yeah, alright. But don’t go thinking it’s cause I’m a nice person or that I care. I just I don’t want you guys to kick me out again,” Santana says.

 

Kurt smiles through her lie.

 

~*~

 

“So.” Blaine’s shoulders twitch strangely.

 

“Sit?” Kurt climbs up on the bed and gestures for Blaine to join him. There’s no other place to sit in his room and he wants Blaine close. Blaine hesitates then climbs up, settling himself cross-legged across from him. The sounds of Saved! filter through the closed curtain.

 

“I don’t--” Blaine starts, rubbing his palms against his thighs.

 

“Know where to start?” Kurt says.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Their voices are quiet, and with Blaine’s face directed toward his lap, it’s hard to hear him.

 

“It’s late,” Blaine offers inanely. “Are you tired? B-because we can always--”

 

“I think I want to try again,” Kurt says, rushing through the words.

 

~*~

 

Blaine’s heart doesn’t stop, his breath keeps moving as always, constant through his body. It’s nothing movies or books tell you, no clichéd reaction to stunning news. It’s warm, the same surprise he felt on Christmas Day as a child when the presents under the tree weren’t quite what he’d been expecting, but were even more exciting for that element of surprise.

 

He thought this would probably happen, but nothing about this looks like what he’d expected. Kurt reaches for his hands and Blaine sees his fingers trembling. They’re cold. Blaine squeezes them and Kurt inhales, eyes shimmering suddenly with the threat of tears. Blaine’s throat feels too tight and his chest aches.

 

“I’m--” Kurt says, biting his lip and ignoring the starting tears that Blaine wants to wipe away, “I’m scared, though.”

 

They hold gazes, steady even when Blaine starts to cry too.

 

“I know it’s different,” Blaine says, clearing his throat. “But I really am too.”

 

He could say more--they should say more, but Kurt’s breath is hitching a little with the effort of holding back and Blaine can’t hold back any more either. He takes Kurt’s face gently in his hands. That’s when he really feels it, the dropping of emotion both delicious and terrifying, through his chest and heart that starts to pound and his stomach. Kurt’s cheeks are overwarm even though damp. He collects Kurt’s tears with his thumbs, leaving his cheeks shimmered with moisture wiped away. At his touch, Kurt sighs deeply, closing his eyes, palms coming to rest around the curves of Blaine’s knees.

 

He doesn’t kiss him--doesn’t want to push too hard, not when they’ve agreed to take it slow and they’re both stripped raw in this moment, scared and unsure but hoping to take a leap together.

 

~*~

 

“Okay.” Kurt crosses his leg over another, hitching his beautifully tailored grey trousers automatically to prevent pulling,

 

“Okay?” Blaine turns from the sink to where Kurt is sitting at the table. He’s been alone in the apartment all day, itchy and unsure, while Kurt worked. It’s only the second day, two days of accumulating awkward movements, aborted muscle memories and instincts--to lean in and kiss Kurt’s cheek when setting the table. To squeeze his waist when standing at the counter drying dishes.

 

It’s two days into this attempted reconciliation and the stilted heavy air between them is killing him. They slept in Kurt’s bed together after their conversation, fear creating distance, but also with willingness and longing crackling between them. They faced each other, eyes wide and naked. Honesty without words: _I want to touch you,_ Blaine thought. _I miss being held,_ Kurt’s face said.

 

“I think,” Kurt says as he shifts, his quiet voice startling Blaine out of his thoughts, “This is making me crazy. You’re here because we are trying to fix this. I’m ready to do this, but I think we need to have that mature conversation for any of this to really work, right?”

 

Blaine sets the dish towel down carefully, takes a deep breath--so deep he ends up coughing a little. God he’s nervous.

 

“Alright.” He approaches the table cautiously. Kurt shakes his head.

 

“No, lets sit somewhere comfortable. I want this to feel--” Kurt says, biting his lip and looking away. He shrugs a little. “Comfortable.”

 

Blaine steers himself onto the red cushioned couch. He curls his legs under him, facing Kurt. Comfortable is good. He wants that more than anything, the comfort Kurt is talking about. To feel like they used to, like best friends synced in every way, able to read moods and react to one another with an instinct cultivated over months of interaction and love.

 

“So,” Blaine says, clearing his throat, “How do you want to start? I mean--”

 

His face flushes a hot and ugly red, heart speeding up. “Do you want to talk about what happened, with um… with--”

 

“No!” Kurt softens his voice and says, “No, please. I just can’t… I’m not ready for that.”

 

His fingers tingle with cold; they feel like ghost hands. Blaine’s whole body does actually, feels strange and not like it’s his. It’s not the first time, and won’t be his last he’s sure.

 

“Can we… is it dumb if we just get to know each other?”

 

“Um...” Blaine tilts his head. They know each other, don’t they?

 

“Well, over again. I feel like I’ve changed a lot. I think you probably have too.”

 

Kurt wiggles his toes closer to Blaine; they’re both holding their breath. But when Kurt’s foot wedges under him, like he used to do whenever they watched TV, cold toes looking for warmth, Blaine exhales and closes his eyes. It’s the most simple sort of touch, but feels like they’ve managed to cut a little hole into that wall between them. He shifts to cover Kurt’s feet automatically. It’s that muscle memory when his hand cups Kurt’s calf, rubbing a soothing stroke up to the secret hollow behind Kurt’s knee.

 

Kurt takes a breath and the whole room stills, pregnant with expectation and Blaine’s fear. But Kurt doesn’t, he doesn’t move or stiffen in the way that, if you were paying attention and knew how to read, reads clearly _don’t touch._

 

“It’s okay.”

 

Blaine imagines that the air contracts when Kurt grants permission, returned to a normal size and that they are just them again. It’s a nice feeling, though fleeting, he understands.

 

“I stopped gelling my hair on weekends,” Blaine says.

 

Kurt examines him, eyes finding their way from Blaine’s head and down to his knees. “Why did you do that?”

 

“It started after--” He swallows. They weren’t to speak of Eli, but could he talk about the fallout? “After I came home from New York.”

 

“Oh.” With Kurt’s flickering away eyes, Blaine feels like he needs to rush into the next, to push through into the things they don’t want to talk about. His lip hurts where he is biting it.

 

“It was hard… to do anything. I still gelled for school. Still tried to do everything. But on weekends there were so many reasons not--” He breaks off when Kurt leans forward, eyes squinched with hurt. His fingers on Blaine’s face almost jolt him. Warm moisture pulls away on Kurt’s fingers; Blaine wants to lean into the touch, to feel Kurt’s palm cupped safe.

 

“After a while, I started to like it, in a way. I’d put a little stuff in--once I started to feel better. Like I was… human and less this projection of a person I thought people wanted me to be.” His eyes are on Kurt’s now, so he doesn’t miss the small shudder that runs through him. “Like I wasn’t a horrible person.”

 

“You could never be a horrible person,” Kurt says. He breathes. He wipes his fingers against his own pant leg, drying Blaine’s tears.

 

“There’s a lot that’s happened between then and now,” Blaine says. “And I think… I think it was important for me, to realize that… I’m not my mistakes?”

 

“What do you mean?” Kurt brings his hand back, fingers tentative when they settle just inside his knee, torturously close to his inner thighs.

 

Blaine shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “Kurt,” he says, his voice searching and serious, “I did something awful. I did. But I don’t want to be defined by that for the rest of my life. I want forgiveness--both from you and for myself. But I don’t want to _be_ that person, or let myself be.”

 

Kurt looks at him seriously for a long minute. His eyes warm. He puts his hand on Blaine’s cheek, tentatively. Then he leans forward slowly; gives Blaine a chance to say no--not that he would. Blaine nods. His heart pounds so hard he feels dizzy with it when Kurt kisses him. Kisses him slowly, like something brand new.

 

Kurt’s fingers tighten behind his ear and around his jaw when he breathes in sharply. His lips part, just a little. Blaine grips his waist; pulls him in and kisses him, just the barest hint of tongue and heat. When it shades toward a little too much, Kurt’s lips a little more aggressive and his own desperate response rising, he pulls away. Kurt laughs, just a slight huff of air and they rest their foreheads against each other’s.                     

                                                                               

It’s quiet for a while after that. His hand slides from Kurt’s waist and back to tangle with Kurt’s fingers. Kurt squeezes, touch fizzing, then turns his hand over so they are palm to palm.`

 

“Maybe soon, can we talk about how,” Blaine starts, “How I changed… everything. My self especially. Hurt myself.”

 

Kurt was right, he realizes. They need to get to know one another because there is so much left unsaid. Deeper things that cut through him, that crack him open unbearably. That had cracked him open until he was nothing but raw and exposed to himself for the first time. He’d felt newborn but alone with no one to help him understand the learning knowledge of who he was.

 

“You didn’t,” Kurt says, sitting up straighter. “Blaine you didn’t… you didn’t hurt yourself did you?”

 

Blaine tries for reassuring. “No, no. I meant emotionally.”

 

“Well then, it is we.”

 

“We?” Blaine prompts.

 

“I have been thinking. I did a lot of thinking,” Kurt says. His face is blushed pink, but his eyes are sad and shine with the start of tears. “After what happened. And at first, it was so easy to blame you. To make it all your fault.”

 

“Well it was, wasn’t it?” Blaine’s eyes are on his knees, fingers clenched in his lap, painful tight with his nails digging into palms. He takes a second to concentrate on that, the prickling that feels real in a way he can’t explain.

 

“You made a choice Blaine. It hurt and it was wrong, but there was a reason.” Kurt insists. “I think we both broke this. Or damaged it.”

 

Blaine tries to nod, feeling tears drip off of his nose. He’s not sure he wants to hear this, but can’t deny that it’s what he’s been longing for since Kurt left. Kurt left and everything felt wrong; Blaine had felt untethered and out of place and unsure of his body and mind. He needed Kurt in so many more ways than Kurt had given him.

 

Blaine opens his eyes with difficulty. They’re swollen and tear stuck. The light refracts through the moisture and he has to blink them free fiercely. “So what now?”

 

“I guess we keep working on this.” Kurt scoots closer, lays his palm again on Blaine’s knee. It almost feels new, Kurt initiating closeness and contact. But it’s not, it’s a dance buried deep in his self, a fragment of who they were before they’d cracked apart and open. Like pomegranates, he thinks. Fractured and spilling little bits everywhere because nothing inside is whole or together.  

 

He huffs a laugh through tears. Kurt’s open face is curious, but Blaine shakes him off. Splits the tense air with a helpless yawn.

 

“I’m sorry, I guess it’s been a long day.” The couch isn’t necessarily soft, but it is welcome when he lays his head against it.

 

“Well it is pretty late,” Kurt says. He looks back from the clock, squeezes his knee. “Want to sleep? I know we’ve barely scratched the surface, but… maybe we can take everything slow. So it’s not totally overwhelming.”

 

He hesitates before answering. “That sounds great.”

 

“So… um, did you want to--” Kurt says as he gestures toward his room, “Again?”

 

As if he’d say no to sharing a bed with Kurt again. Even with the space between them that had been so present last night, sleeping with Kurt felt so much like home. Something he’d longed for familiar. Maybe one day, when he comes to New York, if his wishes and this attempt to mend things work.

 

“I think that would work for me.”

 

~*~

 

In bed, with the sounds of Rachel rustling in the kitchen, Blaine is surprised (but also relieved) when Kurt scoots closer. Opens his eyes to meet Blaine’s. It’s dark and he can’t read their colors, their mutable expressive quality that has always helped him read Kurt.

 

“Closer?” Kurt asks.

 

Kurt skims a hand over him, not touching but testing the air in a line from Blaine’s shoulder to hip. He sounds almost pleading and unsure in a way that Blaine is feeling as well. Blaine shifts carefully until they are not quite touching. And he can’t breathe, not when Kurt’s arm comes around him carefully, elbow almost a little sharp uncomfortable in the concave between Blaine’s ribs and hip. Blaine adjusts a little again, hold his breath when he feels Kurt’s palm, fingers wide, against the small of his back.

 

“Slow,” Kurt whispers, and Blaine isn’t sure if he’s asking or reminding himself. Kurt directs his touch, leading Blaine until their bodies are sharing the same intimate space. He can smell Kurt in a way that he’s missed viscerally these months. A smell he hasn’t been close enough to since Kurt left for New York. The complete smell of a person that’s only hidden in near spaces.

 

“Anything you need.”

 

“I was hoping that what we do would be what you need too,” Kurt says, a little unsure and vulnerable.

 

“I can work on that.” Blaine doesn’t promise that he’ll be able to do that just yet. Can’t pretend that right now, he’ll do anything that Kurt directs right now. Carefully, he slips his fingers around Kurt’s hip, tries to keep his touch casual. Drags his fingers up the line of Kurt’s spine. It’s impossible to ignore the way they both shake, Kurt’s tremulous and shocked hot inhale.

 

Blaine’s body can’t not react. He can’t. Slow is the right thing, but his traitor body doesn’t care for these rules. His body wants. He wants, badly.

 

But Kurt’s hand is warning against his chest. Blaine feels the way he trembles with each breath.

 

“I know,” Blaine says. He reassures and stops the slide of his hand. Settles himself in the bed more firmly. In the comfort home of Kurt’s renewed touch. “I know.”

 

Kurt relaxes; Blaine can feel the sag of muscles seeping tension into a mattress, the slow slide of Kurt’s body into sleep. He lays in the dark counting the slowing breaths. The room expands and contracts in its obscurity along with Kurt’s lungs. It’s the warmth, the furnace close of Kurt’s body under the blankets that comforts him into sleep as well. Kurt’s nearness is a better drug to fall asleep to, keeps him deep and heavy in dreams more thoroughly than his medications ever are.  

 

~*~

 

They were never the sort of sleepers that stayed curled together through ‘til morning. At some point in the night, one of them would inevitably roll away. So they are, backs turned to one another when Kurt blinks into sunlight waking. Long moments are spent like this, blinking his way into the hard beating rhythm of simple happiness. His body floods with it, tingles through fingers and toes, everything in between. Behind him is the boy who his heart is tied to, breathing and warm and his, his, his.

 

He rolls over, lifting the comforter carefully, trying not to rustle or jostle the mattress too much. He stills, heart rabbit quick, when Blaine’s breathing stutters. It evens as Kurt moves in minute increments closer. Until he’s close enough to feel his body heat, smell him stripped of anything but himself. Kurt closes his eyes and lets it wrap him, bind him beautifully in comfort and love.

 

Still cautious, he slides one arm around Blaine, draped over his waist, and pulls himself flush. His body, Judas body that’s been starved of this sort of touch for so long, wants to respond in familiar ways. It’s fear only that keeps him calm, fear of moving too fast and breaking what's left of his reserve.

 

He can’t go back to trusting Blaine the way he did. He can’t even love Blaine in the same way, even when he knows he’ll love Blaine always. It’s a different shape now, and Kurt’s only beginning to fumble blindly around what that is, shaking palms starting to trace what those shapes might be.

 

Slow, he thinks. Just this for now.

 

Blaine is awake; his body beginning to shift from lax sleep into loose and comfortable wakefulness. Kurt’s eyes close. He presses his forehead between Blaine’s shoulder blades and lets himself bask, take the weight of Blaine’s body molding against his. Between his fingers Blaine’s wind, squeezing and then relaxing.

 

“Morning.”

 

“Mmm,” Blaine mumbles, stretching his lithe beauty in the streaming morning light, “ _Good_ morning.”

 

“Beautiful,” Kurt breathes, nestled between the wings of his shoulders where its safe warm and home.

 

~*~

 

“Therapy!” Blaine blurts out suddenly, loudly enough to startle the couple walking a squat bulldog past them.

 

“Pardon?” Kurt’s giving him a sort of curious look--eyebrows lowered, head tilted. Blaine resists the urge to groan in embarrassment.

 

“Yeah wow.” He does close his eyes; not the best idea when walking uneven pavement. He trips over a raised seam and only Kurt’s arm winding through his manages to keep him upright.

 

“Hey, careful there,” Kurt says, petting his arm with a free hand. “I have a vested interest in keeping you safe and whole here.”

 

It makes him smile, the hint of what’s to come.

 

“Hello, _Blaaaine_.” It’s the thread of impatience snapped out that really brings him out of his thoughts.

 

“I’m sorry, I am kind of all over the place,” Blaine says. He stops, tugging Kurt to a standstill as well. “Is there any way--I mean, someplace we can go? That’s quiet and we can talk?”

 

He must look worried, because Kurt is just shooting him a level look and nodding. “Yes, of course.”

 

“I’m sorry, I know we are meant to be exploring New York--” he starts.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt says, his lips rise in a half smile that is knowing, “New York will always be here for us--” Kurt bites those lips when they fall back uncertainly.

 

“For us,” Blaine says on an exhale, letting his shoulder lean against Kurt’s more heavily.

 

“You came here so we could fix this right?”

 

“Yes, Kurt,” Blaine says. He takes a risk, tips his head onto Kurt’s shoulder. “That’s what I want more than anything.”

 

Kurt says, “Me too.” It’s a small whisper almost lost in the clamor of busy streets. “So let’s go talk.”

 

~*~

 

“So, therapy?” Kurt’s fingers curl and uncurl around the warmth seeping from his coffee cup.

 

“Yes,” Blaine says, head ducked. “Therapy.”

 

This conversation is going in circles. Even establishing the first day that they promised to work on this, they both seem to feel the need to reassure and retest their own words. Kurt sighs.

 

“Blaine, please just talk to me.” He tries again to meet Blaine’s eyes, ducking his head down a little. Sad tawny sweet, lashes like soot sought, it seems, look anywhere but at Kurt.

 

“I went to therapy,” Blaine finally gets out, whisper heavy.

 

_Thank God_ , is all Kurt thinks. If not just because he wondered before, and not just because after their breakup when he knew how alone they both must be, he worried so, so much. Thanksgiving reconciliation had been nice; he’d missed even talking to Blaine about the mundane, the things he saw and experienced in New York. The small things Blaine went through at school, impressions of the new students and Finn’s leadership role in Glee.

 

But it was never the same. It was never like it had been. So often he sensed the heavy dread of something: loneliness, resignation, self loathing--things he’d never been sure how to address. Things weren’t the same for a long time, and neither were fool enough to pretend they were.

 

New York and these brief days together were about something new. Kurt didn’t want what was old, to just go back and be the way that they had been. He wanted something different. Something new to made from the boys they have changed into, from their new hearts, broken chrysalis vulnerable.

 

“I’m glad,” is all Kurt says before daring to slide a hand forward and take Blaine’s. Blaine drops the stir stick he’s been fiddling with and finally, finally looks up.

 

“I am too,” Blaine admits with a sigh that slips his eyes closed only to open shining a way only Blaine’s can.

 

Despite everything between them, the stilting air cumbersome between them, there are things he’ll never forget about Blaine. And this is one--the fear that someone will reject him. The fear of exposing his most tender self, a boy who needs more than he’ll ever ask.

 

“Will you tell me about it? About why you decided to go?” Kurt asks. He harbors some small fears, despite the conversation last night. Whatever happened, it was enough to push Blaine past a fixed determination to never be less than what he’d projected for so long. Strong, capable, malleable. Pleasing in every way.

 

“Yes,” Blaine says, finally taking a sip of his coffee, fingers tightening as a smile flitters up at Kurt.

 

~*~

 

It’s exhausting, just to talk about the why. They talk through two cups of coffee and the revolution of customers and customers in and out of the shop. It hurts, to know. He can picture Blaine so well: broken, sleep needing and heart split. And now, across the table from a boy -- man -- he wants clearly in his life, there is nothing but the spiked mace of regret tearing at him.

 

Which isn’t practical because what was, was. Kurt can no more go back than he can heal Blaine. Because for once, he really understands that in the end, what Blaine really needed was not Kurt’s help, but to help himself.

 

Small victories, he is understanding, seem to be laced with pain. But maybe… maybe that’s just the growing pain of transition.

 

“So, I guess that’s what happened,” Blaine breaks out. “I never thought Mom would understand, was so scared to ask.”

 

“But she understood,” Kurt offers softly, fleeting pride for one good, kind decision from a mother mostly absent in many ways from Blaine’s life.

 

“She understood. She came home,” Blaine says, lifting his shoulder like he’s still surprised by that gesture. “Mom came home and helped me find the right person and was just there. Another constant in the house. It felt… nice. Just to have another person there, all the time.”

 

To depend on? Kurt wondered. Just so that he wouldn’t feel so isolated?

 

“I still didn’t sleep, and everything hurt. Not just because of--” Blaine says, gesturing awkwardly between them, “but physically. I’d get out of bed in the morning and feel unreal because I hadn’t slept again and my muscles would be sore. My joints--”

 

Blaine laughs a little, looking out the window to track activity on the street. “Sometimes I thought, this must be what it’s like when you’re 80, Kurt,” he continues. His eyebrows move, expressive thick that Kurt loved -- hopefully will get to love again -- to run the tip of his index finger over, over and over, eyes on Blaine’s and body so close they ended up sweat stuck and cold when they had to peel apart.

 

“Being old must suck and I would like for scientists to invent some sort of technology to age backward at some point in time,” Blaine says.

 

“Hopefully it won’t be too bad with me to take care of you,” Kurt offers shyly. “At the very least, we know we’ll have flawless skin.”

 

Blaine’s laughter is bright, like gold lightning to illuminate Kurt inside with happiness. _This boy,_ he thinks, _this boy is everything to me._ It’s nice, to know but have the certainty of their life together acknowledged by both. It’s something dependable and permanent. Kurt suddenly knows that what he needs _now_ is Blaine. Just Blaine in his arms, body close and heavy his.

 

“Can we go back home now?” He checks the time, ignores Blaine’s tiny movement of surprise. Home.

 

“Yes. And Kurt--” Blaine starts, cheeks burning, “you are home.”

 

“We,” Kurt corrects. Because he doesn’t want to be Blaine’s home; he wants them to be a unit.

 

~*~

 

“So I guess that conversation wasn’t really done was it?” Kurt asks. He waits for the sheet he’s just snapped out to settle before tucking the corner on his side in. He waits for Blaine to finish his, a little sloppier than Kurt’s. Blaine doesn’t even sleep with a top sheet on his own bed. The thought alone makes Kurt twitch a little. There’s a top sheet for a reason, or they wouldn’t come in sets, right?

 

“What do you mean?” Blaine asks, focused on pulling the heavy comforter up, smoothing it over the bed.

 

“Well, I think you wanted to tell me more about the therapy,” Kurt says. He crawls onto the bed, settling at the headboard. “Maybe?”

 

“Yeah.” Blaine sits across from him. “I--”

 

Kurt looks down, then puts his palms face up. It’s an invitation.

 

“Blaine, I love you,” Kurt says. He feels the words, fire bright working their way out of his chest. It stings a little, and it frightens him, but it’s _right_. “I want to know everything. You know I’d never judge you, right?”

 

“I guess,” Blaine says, talking down, fingers curling reflexively in Kurt’s before loosening. “Well, I started therapy and that was _\-- is_ \-- good. I like it. I feel like it’s really helping me with a lot. But that’s not--”

 

Blaine swallows and takes a breath. Kurt scoots as close as he can, knees knocking against his. He untangles on hand and cups Blaine’s cheek, hoping to convey gentle encouragement.

 

“I’m on medication now,” Blaine blurts in one breath, then sucks another in and holds it. Darts a quick look up, as if assessing Kurt’s face.

 

Kurt keeps his face remarkably neutral. It’s something to process. Something unexpected, but he’s scared to let that show. This must be so hard on him, so frightening for Blaine, and he wants to do this right.

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. He tips closer to kiss Blaine, just a whisper of his lips against Blaine’s. “Do you think you can tell me more about it, or do you want to take some time?”

 

“I don’t,” Blaine says. He runs a shaking hand over his hair; a nervous reflex Kurt is familiar with. Making sure everything is in place, perfectly controlled. His hand is shaking. “I don’t know, I’m just… my heart is pounding and I can’t--”

 

Blaine is gasping a little for breath and it’s so clear, the way anxiety is sweeping over him. Kurt’s never actually seen Blaine like this--it feels like a long time ago, the night he talked to him over the phone, voice as soothing as he could make it, wishing so hard he could take Blaine into his arms.

 

There’s no manual for this, and Kurt doesn’t know what will help, so he can only let his instincts guide him.

 

“It’s okay,” he says, running his hands up and down Blaine’s arms. “Blaine, honey. Take a breath for me. Take a breath and count to three.”

 

Before him, Blaine struggles to comply, his breathing erratic and eyes shut so tight. “Come on honey, you can do this,” Kurt says.

 

Kurt’s hands cup Blaine’s cheeks and he tilts Blaine’s head up. When his eyes open, dark ocher and scared, Kurt keeps his own steady on them.

 

“Come here,” Blaine says, pulling Kurt forward, hands tugging the sides of his sweater. “Please can you--”  

 

He pulls until Kurt crawls onto his lap, then falls back against the bed. “Just lie here please.”  Behind his tears, faint lines of salt drying streak his cheeks, then back towards his ears when he lies down.

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. He tries to sooth him, completely unsure of what he’s doing. “Is this, I don’t--”

 

“I know,” Blaine says. His breathing slows, but against the darling line of his neck Kurt can see the frantic pace of his heart beating. “I know it’s weird but I just want to feel your weight on me.”

 

“Blaine--”

 

“It’s not a sex thing--” he says, rushing the words. “I just want to feel you all around me.

 

Blaine sighs when Kurt complies finally, draping himself with legs bracketing Blaine’s, chest to chest with his elbows propping his head up. “But also, I felt so untethered after you left. Like nothing was holding me down and sometimes I was so tired nothing felt real.”

 

Blaine’s arms wrap vice tight around his waist, pulling him down further. Kurt scoots downward a little and tucks his face just under Blaine’s chin.

 

“This helps?”

 

“It’s helping. I just want to feel grounded Kurt.” It’s plaintive and naked vulnerable, the confession. Kurt closes his eyes and focuses on his body, isolates muscle groups the way he’s learned in yoga, imagining them growing roots and connecting him heavy into the earth. Lets himself feel the heft of his own body over Blaine’s. Under him, Blaine is breathing deep and steady and close.

 

He’s grounding Blaine, yes. But with every imagined root, sparking start from his muscles and skin and binding him to Blaine and this bed and this earth, Kurt knows that here he’s grounded too.

 

~*~

 

It’s only moments before he’s almost asleep, in the twilight before the drop into it, and it feels so much better than any sleep he’s had since that night in the hotel with Kurt.

 

“M’sleepy,” he manages to mumble.

 

“So then sleep.”

 

Kurt’s nose is soft where he nudges just under his chin, lips damp when he kisses. His hair tickles a little but his body is just the right firm density in his hands.

 

Blaine drops into sleep like a stone, silence like water enveloping and safe.

 

~*~

 

Blaine sleeps straight through til three in the morning. At some point Kurt must have gotten up. He’s curled next to Blaine, face lax and so young, wearing a loose t-shirt and his underwear. Blaine watches him for a few moments, eyes tracing the contours of his cheekbones and the curve of his nose from what he can discern in the faint moonlight.

 

He knows he won’t go back to sleep unless he takes something. If he does take something he knows he’ll need at least eight hours after. Kurt has work, so it should be alright to stay in bed.

 

Blaine slips from under the covers Kurt’s pulled over them. They are sleeping the wrong way, just as Blaine had laid down. It’s nothing really, but everything inside. Small gestures that make him almost hurt with gratitude that he has Kurt still in his life.

 

It takes a few moments to find his toiletry bag; he trips over something--a shoe maybe? He isn’t sure, and it’s not like Kurt to leave a mess behind. He doesn’t dwell though, just stumbles his way to the bathroom and swallows his pill. In the mirror he sees a wreck, hair springing free and face sallow with exhaustion. He closes his eyes with resolution and tries not to wonder why Kurt loves him so.

 

~*~

 

“Where’d you go?” Kurt murmurs as he rolls back into his side, burrowing into his arms with his nose in Blaine’s neck.

 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Blaine says, running his fingers through Kurt’s lush, messy hair. “Took something to help.”

 

“Mm, ‘kay.” Kurt falls back into sleep immediately. Blaine closes his eyes, fingers moving rhythmically through and through the strands of hair.

 

~*~

 

“Blaine?” Kurt rubs Blaine’s arm gently, but gets no response. “Blaine, honey, can you wake up for a minute?”

 

“Mm,” Blaine mumbles. He sits up suddenly, uncoordinated and tips to the side, Kurt catches him and rights him.

 

“I have to go to work, then classes. Will you be okay alone?”

 

Blaine looks at him through barely open eyes. “Fruit.”

 

“Wha--?”

 

Blaine pushes past him and stumbles out of bed.

 

“Can I have fruit? I need fruit,” Blaine says.

 

“Ooooookay.” Kurt picks an apple from the bowl on the counter. “Will an apple work?”

 

“Yes.” Blaine takes a bite then turns away, gets back into bed after taking one bite, and leaves the apple on the night table. He’s asleep almost instantly.

 

~*~

 

“So, that was weird,” Kurt says as he sets the pasta bowl on the table.

 

Santana looks up from where she’s been poking her meal listlessly. “Yeah, what was that about?”

 

“Hm?” Blaine looks up.

 

“The apple thing this morning?”

 

Blaine’s eyebrows scrunch adorably. “What apple thing?”

 

“Your random quest for an apple when I was trying to say goodbye?”

 

“Oh! Oh my god that explains why there was an apple in the bed,” Blaine says, starting to laugh. “I’m so sorry, sometimes I do that when I--”

 

Blaine glances at Santana then tries to give Kurt a meaningful look. Kurt nods and Blaine says, “I have no idea why. I don’t actually remember doing that.”

 

“When you what?” Santana asks. Sometimes she reminds him of a shark, single minded and stalking it’s prey. Only really pretty and occasionally kind enough to let it go. He hopes she’s in that sort of mood.

 

“Uh--”

 

“Wait--the apple was _in_ the bed?” Kurt says. He looks mildly horrified. “Hold on--you just get up and walk around and don’t remember it? Isn’t that dangerous?”

 

“Okay,” Santana says, slapping her fork down, “what’s the secret? Auntie Tana is way too tired to figure this out.”

 

“Sleepwalking, okay?” Blaine snips at her.

 

He turns his attention to Kurt. “I don’t think so?“ Blaine shrugs and serves himself some mostaccioli. “I’ve never done more than search for fruit.”

 

They look at each other for a beat, and then Kurt starts to giggle. “Apple quest,” he manages before Blaine starts laughing too. The both ignore Santana’s rolled eyes and fake retching noises.

 

It feels good, finally, to find some levity in his situation.

 

~*~

 

Blaine asks Rachel for a recommendation, because he wants to take Kurt on a romantic date. The sort of sweep-you-off-your feet date Kurt deserves. That Kurt loves. Blaine wants to see Kurt in candle light, the radiance of his skin and how his eyes are fathomless in it. Someplace hushed and intimate and hopefully, a starting new memory that they can have when he comes here. A place they can reminisce about, a place for new anniversaries and a sweet story for their children.

 

It’s hard to plan something as a surprise when he’ll be home to greet Kurt; he can’t greet him dressed nicely and not give it away. Dressing together feels like--well he wants magic, and while he loves the moments they’ve gotten to share in the apartment, snips of domesticity, that’s not the mood he’s going for here.

 

He settles for bribing Rachel and Santana out of the apartment. They both smirk at him.

 

“Make the most of it,” Santana calls, sweeping her coat from it’s hook. “You’d better have him screaming by the end of the night.”

 

“N-no- I mean, I don’t--” Blaine’s face is a painful red.

 

“ _Santana_!” Rachel hisses, pulling her along by the hand and shooting Blaine an apologetic look.

 

Santana just laughs and the door shudders loudly closed. For a fleeting moment he entertains the erotic images that flitter through his head. That is not the intention tonight--they aren’t even _there_ yet, haven’t so much as talked about if they are close to ready. What he wants for tonight is both simpler and much more complex than just sex, even if the image of Kurt on his back, moaning Blaine’s name soft and desperate -- because he is definitely not a screamer -- leaves him shaking.

 

Blaine checks the time, setting aside his fantasies in favor of busy work, flameless candles to strew over the apartment. He sets the tulips in a vase by the door for easy access, so he can give them to Kurt as soon as he walks in the door. Not roses, because he doesn’t need any reminders for either of them. The last time he gave Kurt roses… Blaine swallows, shaking off the rise of shame in his gut. He’s getting better at it, at trying not to dwell on things Kurt has forgiven him for. He’s closer now, than he has been, to forgiving himself.

 

After the scene has been set in the common areas, Blaine works on stringing fairy lights in Kurt’s room. Rachel had offered them when Blaine had approached her, with a small but sad smile.

 

“Brody left them behind, he used them once, on Valentines Day. I hope you and Kurt can make better memories of them,” she said, after which she kissed his cheek and went back to cooking.

 

He’s not setting the scene for seduction. It feels daunting and complicated and he’s not sure if it’s the right way, but tonight he wants to tell Kurt everything. He wants to give Kurt his deepest secrets, to show Kurt how ready he is to trust him, and to give it to him as a gift.

 

Blaine knows it’s a necessary step for them to move on. And although it’s a painful and scary step, he wants to be sure that he keeps the theme of intimacy and romance because it is intimate, and ultimately, the most intimate thing he’ll ever have done, with anyone.

 

~*~

 

He’s dressed impeccably and waiting nervously--has been for ten minutes, all awkward shifting feet and impatient hands that check his pocket watch impatiently all too many times.

 

Kurt finally arrives, spot on at the time he always does, a flurry of called words and coats and movement as he turns in the gap of their slid open door.

 

“Hey I’m--” Kurt’s call drops off as soon as he sees Blaine. His coat hangs from his fingers and his lips slide gently into a soft smile.

 

“You look wonderful,” he says. He hangs his coat carefully and then takes the flowers Blaine offers him tentatively, a lovely bouquet of white and mauve variegated blooms. “What’s all this?”

 

Blaine hesitates, then puts his hand on Kurt’s waist, moving slowly enough that Kurt can read his intention and back away. But he doesn’t, just leans in to meet his mouth in the most tender of kisses.

 

“I wanted to take you out tonight. Somewhere special.”

 

It’s not dark enough for the candles to really have a full effect, but even so, once Kurt sees them, everywhere on all surfaces of the apartment, his skin pinks beautifully.

 

“Wow,” Kurt says. His smile sparkes playfully. “Softening me up?”

 

“No,” Blaine says seriously, fingers pulling Kurt’s shirt where they are still wrapped at his waist. “Romance.”

 

“Oh.” Kurt pauses, eyes roving over the room again, stopping at the curtain of his room where the twinkle lights show through the sliver where Blaine hasn’t quite closed it. He looks back at Blaine, eyes serious now too, but genuine and caring. He kisses Blaine then, again. Just a little, a thank you.

 

“We have reservations at seven,” Blaine interjects when Kurt pulls away. “Is that enough time for you to get ready?”

 

“I’ll do my best,” Kurt says, gravely but with a smile. “Where are we going?”

 

“It’s a surprise.”

 

“Of course.” Kurt sighs.

 

“It wouldn’t be the ultimate romantic date if I told you honey,” Blaine explains. “Just take your cues from what I’m wearing.”

 

Kurt’s face is a little skeptical, but he nods, turns toward the bathroom and says, “I’ll attempt an abbreviated routine.”

 

He winks over his shoulder and when the door closes, Blaine lets the air he didn’t know he’d been holding out of his lungs in a whoosh.

 

While Kurt showers and then dresses he fiddles with the placement of candles. Checks and rechecks the cheesecake in the fridge. Fiddles with his tie. Paces and resists the urge to mess with his hair. He tries hard, when Kurt shuffles from the shower to his room, not to let his imagination run away with him. Even in a robe, with his hair plastered to his forehead, Kurt is the single sexiest thing he has ever seen.

 

He _wants_. Kurt makes him hungry, like he’s starved for his body and lips, the light of his skin glowing under his hands, and the way he gasps his pleasure into Blaine’s mouth. His brain, starved for Kurt like that, pictures himself pushing that robe down Kurt’s freckled shoulders, his mouth fever on that skin, pushing Kurt back on the bed so he can rock them together and together and together.

 

Blaine clears his throat and shifts his own shoulders uncomfortably. Smiles at the sound of the hair dryer starting up and knows exactly how much time it will take Kurt from this point, to be ready. He checks the clock. Perfect.

 

~*~

 

“Dance with me?” Kurt holds his hand out and smiles.

 

“Music?” Blaine looks around but Kurt just shakes his head.

 

Blaine takes his hand, lets Kurt pull him in. He starts humming Somewhere Only We Know. Blaine smiles into his shoulder, takes in the scent of his cologne, and feels the moment settle right into his bones. His nerves, dancing alight and clear, calm a bit. He knows what’s to come, and what he’s planned. They left dinner flushed and giggling, and in the kitchen fed each other bites of cheesecake. They never made it to the bed where Blaine had imagined them eating carefully.

 

Instead, Kurt crowded into him when he was at the counter slicing the cheesecake, kissing the back of his neck. He took the fork right out of Blaine’s hand, turned him to kiss his cheek and fed him a bite. His eyes, bright green and flirting, watched him carefully, flickering from Blaine’s lips to his own eyes. They ate slowly in the hazy gold light of an apartment lit only by the candles, trading lush, strawberry and cream flavoured kisses until Blaine felt light headed and off balance.

 

He pulls back to look Kurt in the eyes; his cheeks are hectic bright.

 

“Kurt--” he says, his heart too big for his chest. Kurt presses his lips to Blaine’s forehead and just leaves them there. Blaine tips into the touch. “Can we go to your room?”

 

“Uh--” Kurt stiffens slightly.

 

“Not for--um no I just…” Blaine says, pulling away. “I wanted… I’m ready to talk more about stuff, with you.”

 

Kurt’s eyes are so gentle on his then. “Okay,” he says, his fingers tightening where he’s been holding Blaine’s hand in the dance.

 

In his room, they stand at the end of the bed, regarding it silently. “Want to change into more comfortable clothes?” Kurt asks.

 

Blaine laughs. “Definitely.”

 

They change, averting eyes that keep wanting to wander to the other. It’s tense and a little strange. Without Kurt touching him, his nerves start to amp up.

 

Blaine climbs up first, takes in the twinkle of the fairy lights and how close the room feels with the curtain pulled tight. He sits near the middle, holding his hands out to take Kurt’s when he settles across from him. The bed has become a sort haven where it’s only Kurt and the secrets they share.

 

“I feel like we always end up like this when it’s time to talk,” Blaine says, laughing.

 

“I kind of like it.”

 

“Me too. Maybe we could call it our conversation table.”

 

Kurt’s head tilts a little. “Our what?”

 

“Sarah mentioned this idea once. About having what is called a conversation table when you have to have a serious conversation. It’s a place for communication and honesty. You come to it without defenses and a willingness to hear everything your partner has to say.”

 

Kurt looks down and says, “I like that idea.”

 

~*~

 

“So, I’m taking meds now.”

 

Kurt can tell how nervous Blaine is -- hell _he’s_ nervous -- and doesn’t want to do anything to risk shutting him down. But still, nerves sweeps cold through him.

 

“I...” he says, shifting, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by asking too many questions--”

 

“No, no,” Blaine interrupts. “I want you to ask if you have questions. I guess you want to know why?”

 

Kurt nods, squeezing Blaine’s fingers encouragingly.

 

“Well, technically, I have something called cyclothymia.”

 

“Wait, what?” Was that even a real word?

 

“I know, that’s what I thought when Dr. Lyzell said it.”

 

“Is this like, some sort of technical term for depression--?”

 

“No, it’s… well you know what being bipolar means?”

 

Kurt startles; depression is a term he knows, that he’s comfortable with. Blaine’s lips tremble a little. Kurt can tell his expression has changed, and he struggles to smile.

 

“Look, I--I know how this can seem,” Blaine starts, taking shaking breaths. “I felt the same way, like, _wow_ , this lady is telling me I’m _crazy_ and oh my god what does that _mean_?”

 

“No, no hey,” Kurt says. He shakes Blaine’s hands where they’re joined, then kisses him softly. “No I don’t think that, it’s okay.”

 

“And maybe before this all happened, I’d feel like I need to say, no I’m not crazy, like crazy is something bad but really it’s just a word people have made bad.”

 

“Blaine, honey--”

 

Blaine just steamrolls right over him, eyes wide and earnest. “Sometimes I still think like that, but mostly I just have to keep telling myself that there’s nothing to be ashamed of and that there’s nothing wrong with me, I just work differently and--”

 

“Blaine!” Kurt jumps in again.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“It’s alright,” Kurt says. He leans in and kisses Blaine, softly. “Blaine, honey. I’m not judging you.”

 

~*~

 

Blaine laughs when Kurt’s words hit him, then puts his head down, right on Kurt’s knee, and shudders through it while Kurt’s hands run slow and soothing over his head, over and over and over. Feels dangerously vulnerable, not like he’d feel if he’d stripped of his clothes, but instead his skin.

 

Blaine opens his fisted hands, spanning the curve of Kurt’s thighs. Kurt’s finger feels chilled when it traces the contours of his ear.

 

“Thank you,” Blaine says.

 

He hears the small, sweet laugh in Kurt’s voice when he replies, “Anytime.”

 

There’s a silence.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt starts. Blaine leaves his head on Kurt’s knee. It feels safer, somehow, hidden in the veil of his own closed eyes. “Can you tell me what exactly this cy- cylopsthingy is?”

 

“Cyclothymia,” Blaine manages, laughing.

 

“Okay, well then,” Kurt says, blunt nails scratching at Blaine’s neck gently, along his hairline. “That.”

 

“It’s a mood disorder,” he explains. He turns his head to the side, pressing his cheek to Kurt’s jaw. “Bipolar is a mood disorder too, it’s just more well known. Cyclothymia is like a milder version of being bipolar.”

 

“Can you tell me more about that? I don’t know that I really know that much about either.”

 

Blaine sits up. “Well think of moods as a spectrum, high to low from mania to depression. Most people exist at a sort of level place. With bipolar, you swing between those. There’s also a mood state that exists between ‘normal’ and mania, which is hypomania, and--”

 

“Wow.” Kurt interrupts.

 

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” Blaine tries to gauge Kurt’s reaction.

 

“It’s a lot of information, but not too much. Maybe I should be taking notes though,” Kurt says, turning like he’s going to get off the bed.

 

“No, no, come back,” Blaine giggles. “I’ll email you information.”

 

“Are you sure? I still have the notebook, I have plenty of space now that I’m done with Dad’s information.”

 

God Kurt is so adorable. “You can put it all in there later.”

 

“Okay,” Kurt takes a breath, “so hypomania.”

 

“Yeah. So it’s--on the surface it seems great. I’m more productive and do great in school, am more outgoing. But...”

 

“But?”

 

“I’m also more impulsive, I make bad decisions. And… it’s, that alone would be okay, but it’s that paired with depression that’s more of a problem. And with both, in my case, sleep problems.”

 

“So… when we talked about you going to see Sarah for depression, that wasn’t just it?”

 

“Well, no. I went for the depression. Or what I thought was… or whatever I was going through. After what happened, everything seemed off and suddenly it was like I could see all these things I did--all these strange decisions I would make, mistakes and just… like the Gap Attack, or even the way I behaved with Sebastian.” Blaine shrugs.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah,” Blaine says, looking down. “I just… I felt so awful and alone and like, _wow what’s wrong with me?_ Sarah listened and thought maybe there was more going on, and referred me to Dr. Lyzell.”

 

Kurt’s eyes water. “Blaine,” he says, voice breaking, “I’m so sorry you were alone.”

 

“Kurt, it’s okay,” Blaine tries. Kurt’s tears though, they make it hard.

“It’s--” Kurt swallows.

 

“It’s not but it is?” Blaine offers.

 

Kurt takes a breath and nods. Blaine thinks of what Sarah says all the time. _It is what it is_. It’s past, and the important thing is now. Which is just what Kurt says right then.

 

“Kurt,” he says, gripping Kurt’s leg tighter, “I love you so much.”

 

He curves himself up, pushing their mouths together until Kurt sways back, propped on his hands to keep from falling. Blaine rises and props his hands more steadily on Kurt’s thighs  to balance, biting and sucking at Kurt’s mouth and sweet lips and deft, wicked tongue. He’s not sure what it is about being so painfully laid bare that makes him feel frantic, desperate to be close and held.

 

Blaine puts a hand to Kurt’s chest; his heart is hammering under his palm. He presses gently until Kurt is lying back, hands fisting in Blaine’s shirt. His knees drop open so that Blaine can slot between them, familiar movements a dance they know well. It’s only by the most painful summoning of willpower that he manages not to lower himself until they’re pressed together completely.  

 

Kurt groans, fidgeting restlessly under him, mouth open panting between Blaine’s intermittent kisses.

 

“Blaine, oh--” He tugs harder, groaning his name out. Blaine stiffens a little and pulls away slightly.

 

“I… wait--” he says. He makes himself look at Kurt, lets himself assess what he’s feeling the best he can. “I don’t think right now is the best--”

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. He closes his eyes, then sighs and smiles. “You’re right. Although… it’s actually painful, how hard this is.”

 

Blaine breaks into bright laughter. Kurt swats him, blushing prettily.

 

“I don’t mean _that_ ,” he says. His eyebrow quirks. “Although yeah, that too. I mean, taking it slow.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Blaine tries not to slither closer. He knows this moment isn’t the right one, but _oh god_ , it feels like his skin is crawling. It feels like he’s splitting open and catching fire, Kurt’s lips and wet hot breath and body against him, like he’s burning too bright and it won’t ever stop until they stop holding back and just let themselves go.

 

~*~

 

“Should we turn off the lights?” Kurt asks. He doesn’t want to move, to take his eyes off of Blaine’s sleepy eyes and sweet face. His index finger has been tracing behind his ear and in the hollow of his collarbone for long minutes now. There’s a closeness between them, something new.

 

“I like them, if it’s okay with you?” Blaine says. He slips his thumb under the hem of Kurt’s shirt.

 

“Yeah.”

 

So many things he wants to say, right now. _I’m so proud of you. I’m so sorry you were alone_.

 

So many things make _sense_ now that hadn’t before, like Blaine’s whole self has been a puzzle piece slightly tilted so the edges didn’t fit. It was hard, he knows intimately, for Blaine to tell him everything, and as a result, he feels closer -- they feel closer -- than ever before.

 

Kurt is so glad Blaine had the wherewithal to stop things when he did. Because he wants to linger in the dawn of this new phase, in these new discoveries. In this new, honest and so much more real Blaine.

 

“I know it took a lot of trust to tell me all of this,” he starts, fingers working gently into Blaine’s hair, working strands loose of gel. “Thank you so much.”

 

“I’m--” Blaine tries, then breaks off, breath stuttering clumsily in.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“I think it’s kind of… of hitting me? I’ve been scared to tell you. I… felt really broken and ashamed when--” Blaine’s eyes close, lashes clumping with the dampness of unshed tears.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt says. His whole body beseeches. He doesn’t want to think of their months apart, when he ignored Blaine’s phone calls and pleas for forgiveness. Or worse, the ways he set Blaine as a priority aside when he moved to New York.

 

“Please don’t judge me for this. I’m the same person I was before,” Blaine begs, fingers cupping the back of Kurt’s neck a little desperately.

 

“Oh no, no honey,” Kurt says, shivering kisses across Blaine’s cheekbones and eyelids and honeyed lips. “Never.”

 

He can feel Blaine trembling a bit and gathers him as close as he can, so glad they’d put the brakes on earlier. Blaine like this, so close to the edge of something huge, and them both exposed to the magnitude of his pain, his honesty, and vulnerability--it is not the moment.

 

They want each other so badly, aching layers of longing and desire painful between them, but considering the nature of their last encounter… and how easy sex would be between them now, in a way--it won’t be right. They know each other and their bodies and falling into each other would have felt amazing in the moment. But he never wants to feel with Blaine the way he did after their last time. And based on what Blaine has told him tonight, the aching journey he’s been on and description of how his illness has affected his life, his actions and the way he’s responded to the world around him -- Kurt knows he’s been entrusted to care for this boy the best he can, and he knows how that in this moment when Blaine is so vulnerable… sex would be taking advantage of it.

 

“I have never, ever love you more. I am so proud of you. I am so awed by you, you are so strong.”

 

“Kurt,” Blaine says, shaking his head, “that’s not true. I’ve been… so weak and I hurt you… I hurt myself--”

 

“Blaine,” Kurt interrupts, framing Blaine’s face with his hands. “I forgive you. _Please_.” He’s begging, trusting in the marrow of his bones, for the first time, that he’s really and completely forgiven him: “please forgive yourself.”

 

Blaine shudders hard, surging until his face is hidden in Kurt’s neck, their arms coming to tangle their bodies together. It’s uncomfortable, arms trapped awkwardly between them, but neither moves. Instead, they lie, and Kurt does his best to absorb the seismic shifts of Blaine’s body, shuddering out his pain.  

 

“I’ll do my best Kurt,” he promises.

 

~*~

 

Kurt wakes up to Blaine’s smiling face. It’s the brightest thing in the rain gloomed room, watery light and the pattering of raindrops that makes Kurt feel cozy and warm. The best sort of day for lingering in bed, hushed and happy with Blaine beside him.

 

“Mmm,” Kurt stretches with a sigh. Blaine’s hair is curling slightly around his ear, almost soft under his fingers when he smoothes them. “How long have you been awake?”

 

“Not long.”

 

“Long enough to sit and watch me sleep in a slightly creepy manner?” he teases.

 

“No,” Blaine replies. His smile widens, and he rolls his head a little, nudging Kurt’s hand. Kurt takes the hint, works his fingers through Blaine’s hair. “I could tell you were waking up.”

 

They lay quietly, listening to the rain on the windows. Every now and then Blaine sighs into Kurt’s touch. His hand, when it comes to rest at Kurt’s waist, is hot.

 

“I feel so light,” Blaine says.

 

“Oh?” Kurt’s finger traces Blaine’s ear, over and over.

 

“I’ve just… I’ve wanted to talk to you about all of this for so long. To someone.”

 

“Blaine,” he says, tilting Blaine’s chin up a little, waiting for Blaine’s eyes to open and focus on his own, “thank you for trusting me.”

 

~*~

 

They take turns in the bathroom, then meet again under the covers, fresh and more awake, but loathe to leave the comfort of a warm bed in a spring rainstorm. Under his palm, Kurt’s shoulder is chilled where the blankets have fallen away.

 

“Wanna make out?” he says.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt huffs out a little laugh, then slides closer until he can feel the radiance of Blaine’s skin, “you dork.”

 

Still, he closes his eyes when he meets Blaine’s careful kiss. It starts slowly. They’re not tentative, but not fervoured either. His fingers find each knob of Kurt’s spine in the slowest descent, and Kurt’s tongue is hot, confident in his mouth. There’s no drive to move it farther, just pliant bodies and willing minds, rediscovering one another.

 

“So beautiful,” he breathes out, mouth at Kurt’s collarbone. He luxuriates the in the smallest tremors of Kurt’s wanting body.

 

~*~

 

Blaine over him is a comfort; Blaine over him with a mouth edging toward that delicious sort of desperation, held back desire and tender, so tender with him, is a revelation.

 

“I’ve missed you so much,” Kurt starts, feeling it cramp in his heart.

 

He rolls Blaine over then. Thinks of so many times he’s let Blaine lead them here, let Blaine work their discovering bodies into blinding lust. How when they’d first started sleeping together, Blaine coaxed and worked his confidence out, connected him with his own sensuality, taught him that sex in any form was a beautiful thing.

 

Their bodies are tormentingly close but not enough to take this any further than teasing kisses and murmurs of appreciation. Blaine’s eyes are gold shining in the gloom.

 

Kurt smiles at him, then bites under Blaine’s ear in a way that’s always turned him to mush. Blaine’s stomach jumps under his teasing fingers. He skirts them over and over the skin under his belly button where Blaine’s always been ridiculously sensitive, and wonders how far he can take this before it’s too much for both of them. When Blaine starts to whimper, moving in restless jerks, Kurt lets up, meets his beautiful pink mouth with a lush kiss. They kiss and kiss, breathing together, tangling their fingers with clasped hands on the bed next to Blaine’s head.

 

“I think--” Blaine says, then turns his head and gasps out, “I think I need to cool off.”

 

“Yeah,” Kurt says. He tips to the side so they’re face to face, breath together again, this time in slowing patterns, foreheads touching until they’re calm again.

 

“I have to leave today,” Blaine whispers.

 

“I know,” Kurt says, his eyes warm with the threat of tears.

 

“I’ll be here to visit in June, as soon as I graduate,” Blaine says. “It’s only two months. We can do this.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Kurt,” Blaine says, licking his lips, “please… it’s going to be hard. Things are better--I don’t feel so alone, and Sarah helps, but sometimes… I miss you so much. I know--I know what I did was wrong.”

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. He watches him carefully.

 

“But please, don’t leave me alone like that again,” Blaine says. He rushes the rest out. “I’ll never ever cheat again, I swear it. But it hurt so much, to feel like I was your last priority. I just--I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

 

“I won’t,” Kurt says, and then kisses him. “I promise.”  

 

Blaine’s plea sits heavy in his chest. He knew -- in the months after Blaine cheated when all he had were wondering thoughts trying to sort what had happened -- that his behavior had played a role in breaking them apart. They’ve not addressed it so clearly yet, but he’s glad they have now, now in their last hours before they are separated again. He snuggles closer.

 

~*~

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: April 13, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: I miss you_

 

_It’s been a week and I don’t know how to do this, I miss you so much. I miss your laugh and that adorable thing you do with your leg when you get excited and are dancing. I miss your skin, god, and the way you smell. I miss kissing you. I miss your face and your eyebrow when you’re giving Santana the look (maybe even when you’re giving me the look, because it’s really sexy, although I know you aren’t doing it to be sexy).  _

 

_\- b_

 

*

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: May 1, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: SO CLOSE!!!_

 

_Three weeks down, only 5 more to go! I’ve been thinking… and please, listen you don’t have to say yes, please don’t feel like there is pressure. But if you wanted, I mean, only if you wanted, I mean, I just, I’ve been thinking maybe you could move in here? I know it’s kind of short notice, but the girls actually laughed at me when I asked, they thought it was already going to happen._

 

_I know the dorms are a part of a college experience, so I don’t want to pressure you, I want you to have all the experiences you want or need, and I never want you to think I’m, I..._

 

_I guess I should stop rambling. I would go back and fix that, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve and delete the whole thing._

 

_Love you,_

 

_Kurt_

 

*

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: May 2, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: SO CLOSE!!!_

 

_I really want to say yes, but can I say I’ll think about it? I am not shooting you down, I… I’m really scared to let you down. But I want to make the best decision for both of us. I want to talk to Sarah, and maybe my mom?_

 

_B_

 

*

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: May 7, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: RE: SO CLOSE!!!_

 

_I’m not hurt, and I’m glad you are being honest. Although, I do want to point out that you don’t have to feel responsible for my decisions. Make the best one for you, and we can work that out together._

 

_I’m sorry it took me so long to reply, things are just--well. You know from talking on the phone. I know we’ve hardly had time to connect, and I’m sorry. I love you._

 

*

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: May 7, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: SO CLOSE!!!_

 

_I know you’re busy, but I want to talk to you about this on the phone. I’m trying really hard not to let my feelings get hurt when you keep blowing off our conversations and you haven’t even emailed in days._

 

_b_

 

~*~

 

“Blaine--”

 

“Hey.”

 

Kurt winces. Blaine sounds hollow in a way that scares him a little.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kurt rushes. “I had these papers due and Isabelle was all over me. Shana was out all week and--”

 

“Kurt,” Blaine interrupts, “please stop. I know you’re busy. I don’t really--”

 

Kurt hears him taking a breath. He’s not sure if it’s to calm himself down or to fortify for what he’s going to say.

 

“You’re always making excuses,” Blaine says.

 

“What?” Kurt says. He takes his own deep breath. “That’s not fair. These are real life commitments Blaine, things I’m responsible for. Why can’t you understand?”

 

Kurt tries to listen to the silence between them. It’s so much harder to know where Blaine is at, without seeing him.

 

“I thought I was one of your commitments,” he says softly, and Kurt’s heart drops.

 

“Oh--Blaine.”

 

He thinks of the nights he’s put off a phone call or promised to call back. Of the times he probably could have spared time for Blaine if he hadn’t let himself be steamrolled by the things in his life. Often he’s overwhelmed, over worked trying to offset NYADA expenses and do well at school. But he promised Blaine that he wouldn’t do this.

 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean--honey you are so… I love you.”

 

“I know,” Blaine says. His voice is stronger, but Kurt can hear the tears. “But please--”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Kurt aches, feels it hot in his bones, because making up over the phone feels like a empty victory when they can’t hold each other after, affirming and soothing each other with kisses and touch.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t mean to let you down.”

 

“Oh no,” Blaine says, his voice warmer, “you didn’t. I’m glad--I’m just glad I… it’s hard, to confront the people I love sometimes. I get scared and anxious.”

 

“Don’t ever be scared,” Kurt says softly. “You don’t ever have to be scared of me.”

 

~*~

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: May 13, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: sooo… ;)_

 

_Kurt-_

 

_I talked to Sarah, and my mom (which was so awkward, I can’t even tell you), and I think I want… I mean if you still want--let’s do it!_

 

_Sarah had me think it through, and picture what I saw happening when I move out there. How much time will I want to be with you, how we can fit into each other’s lives with so much happening in them. I thought about how hard it is, sometimes, when our schedules don’t line up right now. I don’t want that kind of friction._

 

_Although I’ve been warned by both of them that living with someone means there’s gonna be plenty of friction. (I didn’t say it, but I was definitely picturing some… really... hot kind of friction. God I miss messing around with you, oh god I can’t wait to see you again). But I worry that we’ll miss each other in other ways (I know how busy you are, and I’ll probably be on a different schedule than you, with my luck). If we aren’t sharing some sort of space, and I really need… it’s probably co-dependant, which I’ll be working on, but I think it would be really reassuring and good for us, to know we have the promise of shared space to be with each other._

 

_So… yeah. I’m in if you still are._

 

_B_

 

_From: Kurt Hummel [khummel@--]_

_Sent: May 20, 2013_

_To:Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Subject: graduation_

 

_I’ve been looking at my schedule. I really want to come for graduation, but I don’t know how to work more than maybe a day in. I don’t want to miss it--I’m going to talk to my dad about using the emergency credit card. I wish I could say I’d stay longer--it’s a big deal, oh my goodness, you’re done with high school._

 

_Plus I really fucking want to hold you. Yes, I swore in an email. It feels weird. I mean, we both know I do it all the time (the Hummel potty mouth is pretty fabulous), but there’s a sort of commitment in writing it out._

 

_I don’t care. I fucking miss you. And if I’m being honest… I really miss sex with you. (I know, I know, you’d say fucking cause it’s all sex to you, but that felt really forward when I saw it written down._

 

_Okay blushing, I cannot believe I am sending this._

 

_k_

 

_From: Blaine D. Anderson [b.anderson@--]_

_Sent: May 20, 2013_

_To: Kurt Hummel [k.hummel@--]_

_Subject: RE: graduation_

 

_Kurt. KURT._

 

_You cannot send me emails like that when you know I’m at school. I won’t even tell you why it took me so long to respond, only that I was a bit… busy… when I got home from school._

 

_So, does that mean when we see each other--?_

 

_Also--Kurt. I want you to see you, and have you at my graduation, but is a day really going to be worth the money? I’ll be coming out to NY a few days after, right?_

 

_-Blaine_

 

~*~

 

“I’m coming.”

 

“Kurt, I don’t--it’s so much money,” Blaine says. He worries his thumb nail, trying not to bite on it.

 

“My dad is going to help. I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Kurt says, his voice resolute.

 

Even though Blaine knows he should fight harder, he doesn’t want to. He really, really wants Kurt there.

 

“So…”

 

“So I get to see you in a few days,” Blaine offers shyly.

 

“Oh god,” Kurt says. It’s the breathless in his voice that really gets to Blaine. “I know. But… I’m hardly going to be home, it’s just for a day. And aren’t you guys having a graduation party?”

 

“Yeah,” Blaine says, swallowing the need that rises like swarming bees through his helpless teenage body. “Seeing you is… everything else can wait. I mean--”

 

“I think I know what you mean,” Kurt says, regret soft in his voice.

 

“Not that I don’t want to, just… seeing you is the best gift ever, everything else would be icing on the cake.”

 

“Amazing icing.”

 

Blaine laughs. “Oh god yes. So, does this mean… I mean, I just--to be clear, you know. I’m ready… for more,” he says, and then rushes out, “No pressure.”

 

“No, no I don’t--there’s not,” Kurt says, clearing his throat. “I’m definitely with you. I just don’t want to rush, you know. I really--I kind of feel like this is a big first, even if it’s not a first.”

 

“I know exactly what you mean. I don’t want to rush either.”

 

“But we can like… fool around right?” Blaine asks. “Because I really miss your lips.”

 

“Oh dear god, yes,” Kurt manages.

 

~*~

 

“Wow, this is hard,” Kurt gasps, then falls into giggles. Against the brown of his comforter, Blaine’s eyes look almost yellow, hazy and satisfied.

 

“Tell me about it,” Blaine says. He shifts, then rolls his hips up, a tease that leaves Kurt moaning softly and biting at his lips.

 

“Not fair,” he whispers and Blaine smiles.

 

It’s not, it’s a tease is what it is, and he knows it’s not going anywhere because they’ve promised to take time with each other, not roll into a quickie the only half hour they have to themselves, having snuck away from the party. But Kurt’s right, it’s so, so hard to hold back the inevitability of rushing tide waters starting to break shore.

 

~*~

 

“There’s no one here,” is the first thing Kurt says when he opens the door to his apartment.

 

“Well… hi!” Blaine says, smiling widely.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Kurt says, He pulls him in, taking Blaine’s bag from his hand. “Hi, how are you, how was your trip, _blah blah blah._ ”

 

“Okay.”

 

Laughing, Blaine lets himself be reeled in. It’s hard to kiss like this, mouth stretched into a smile he feels Kurt start to share until they’re both giggling helplessly.

 

“I’m sorry I just--” Kurt starts. He can’t seem to keep still, fidgeting and shifting restlessly against Blaine, hands circling wide over his back with a pressure the begs their bodies closer. “I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I’m glad to see you and all that, but Santana and Rachel are gone all day and--”

 

“Oh my god, how did you do that?” Blaine ask. His hands are already under Kurt’s shirt, pushing it and the hoodie he’s wearing up impatiently.

 

“I paid them,” Kurt says, mouth already at his neck, greedily sucking kisses along it.

 

“Shut up,” he says, attacking the zipper of Kurt’s hoodie. It’s such a turn on, Kurt’s dressed casually, soft clothes that take nothing to remove. “Oh god did you wear this so I could--”

 

“Yes,” Kurt says, trembling fingers trying to work Blaine’s bowtie off. “Why are _you_ wearing so many clothes?”

 

“I didn’t anticipate you jumping me the moment I walked in,” Blaine says.

 

“Oh--” Kurt says, pulling away. “I’m sorry--I… am I rushing you?”

 

“No.” Blaine frames his face with his hands and tilts it into a long kiss.

 

“I promised we’d take our time,” Kurt says. He ducks out of his shirt, dusked nipples hard tempting against the stark white and delicious freckles that cascade from his shoulders part way down his chest.

 

“So kiss me slowly,” Blaine whispers against his lips, “and I’ll touch you slowly--”

 

Blaine’s hands shiver over Kurt’s scapulas. Kurt’s hands grip his waist and pull Blaine after him. He turns, catching Blaine’s hand and walking them to his bed, taking time to tug the curtain closed.

 

“Just in case,” Kurt whispers with a smile. Less frenzied, but with deliberation, his fingers begin slipping Blaine’s buttons free.

 

~*~

 

Kurt slides Blaine’s shirt off, still feeling frantic but also reverent, tangled in between the desire to rush, to push Blaine under him and take back the months they’ve been denied, and the urge to linger.

 

They promised each other lingering, though. Before, they’d made promised they’d not kept, promises they’d forgotten maybe, or neglected through complacency. If there is anything Kurt can do for them, he’s learned, it is to banish complacency.

 

He skims Blaine’s shoulder with his lips and the tip of his nose, fingers of his opposite hand rucking up the ribbed cotton of his undershirt. A simple kiss bestowed to Blaine’s pulsepoint is all he offers before lifting it out of the way, before palming Blaine’s chest and letting his thumbs skirt his nipples.

 

“Mmh,” Blaine exhales, then turns his face into a kiss, their breath whooshing in in tandem. Blaine cups the back of his head, kissing him more deeply still.

 

“Lie down,” Kurt says. He’s breathing more heavily. Blaine crawls up on the bed, then lays back when Kurt climbs up over him, swinging a leg over to straddle him. His blood sings _hurryhurryhurry_ , but Kurt breathes through that rush. Touches every part of Blaine he’s exposed so far, and making sure to take his time.

 

“Remember when we started sleeping together?” he whispers against Blaine’s belly button. Blaine breathes in a stuttered laugh.

 

“That tickles,” he says as he thumbs the edge of Kurt’s ear.

 

“I know,” Kurt says. He smiles, then impulsively blows a raspberry against Blaine’s belly.

 

“Ack! Stop that!” Blaine giggles helplessly, pushing at Kurt until they’re both laughing, play wrestling and tickling one another. Bright sunlight highlights the shapes of Blaine’s shoulders and the laughing lines of his throat. In his own, Kurt feels a heavy drawing; too much love, so much love it’s hard to hold in.

 

“Well?” he prompts.

 

“Of course I do Kurt.” Blaine runs the pad of his index finger along Kurt’s lips.

 

“You spent so much time--” Kurt says, tries to swallow past that rising in his chest and throat.

 

“Kurt.” Blaine leans up, kisses him. Thumbs just under his eyes where dampness has gathered.

  
“I love you so much,” Blaine says.

 

“Blaine--”

 

“Make love to me now, please,” Blaine begs, tongue dipping past his lips yet again, searching and compelling. His fingers work Kurt’s pants past his hips deftly. The energy, the force of his own emotions and Blaine’s are swamping. He feels picked up and tossed in the rising waters, following their course despite his own intentions. Kurt’s fingers begin their own work.

 

~*~

 

“Will you?” Blaine gasps. His body jerks in starts and stops, feeling like nothing so much as thin skin and pleasure overloaded nerves. Their bodies roll sinuously, giving and receding while they break pleasure like water over one another. One hand cups Kurt’s ass, fingers lost in the crease between thigh and cheek, grinding them closer together.

 

“What?” Kurt breathes against his mouth where their lips are wet and over sensitive. “Anything.”

 

“Would you maybe...” Blaine says, turning his head, his too hot cheeks burning even warmer while his heart pounds, “would you maybe want to fuck me?”

 

Kurt’s whole body stills. Blaine tightens his grip on Kurt as if he’s afraid Kurt will move away.

 

“You--” Kurt leans up a bit. “I--”

 

Blaine leans up too, using the hand that had been gripping Kurt’s waist to prop himself up. “Yes, please,” he says as he bites and sucks at Kurt’s mouth desperatey.

 

“Blaine--” Kurt interrupts. He pulls away, then kisses him softly in apology. “I didn’t even… this is something we should talk about.”

 

“ _Please_ Kurt,” he says quietly. “I know we haven’t. But I’ve been thinking about it for months. I want it to be you--I’ve wanted it to be you--and I just… I can’t wait to share this with you.”

 

“Yeah?” Kurt asks. He lowers his body just a little, then brings a hand up to smooth Blaine’s hair tenderly.

 

“I mean--” Blaine starts, and then a thought occurs to him. “Unless you don’t want to, or aren’t ready.”

 

Kurt laughs lightly. “That is definitely not a problem,” he says. He looks over at the bottle of lube he’d tossed onto the pillow next to Blaine’s. “Only--”

 

“I brought condoms,” Blaine confesses. “Just in case.”

 

“Oh wow,” Kurt says. He closes his eyes and bites his lip. When he opens them again, they look storm grey over the ocean, tinged from the water’s colors.

 

“So--”

 

Blaine rubs his thumb over the curve of Kurt’s ass where he’s still holding him, and props one knee up to bracket Kurt’s thigh.

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. They kiss breathlessly. Blaine’s stomach drops, nerves and fear tangling on the threshold of something so new, so _big_.

 

~*~

 

When Kurt slips his finger into Blaine’s body minutes later, his whole mouth drops open. It’s so _hot_ inside him. He’d expected the heat, and _god_ , how tights it would be--nothing he’s not familiar with in his own body. But somehow, maybe because it’s _not_ his body, Blaine seems even warmer. Scorching and just this moment, only one finger in and Blaine’s gasps so loud in his ear, no amount of experience with his own body feels useful in leading his way.

 

“Are you--is this okay?” he asks, watching Blaine.

 

“Y-yeah.”

 

Blaine shifts, spreading his legs a little. His hand tightens on Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt kisses him carefully. He slowly moves his finger, rocking by increments. Blaine circles his own dick with a loose fist, trying to stroke in time with Kurt’s finger. His asshole clenches when Blaine’s body starts to rock.

 

“Um--” Kurt glances down, trying to keep the movement of his hand steady. “Another?”

 

“Yeah,” Blaine says. He looks him in the eyes then, something strange behind them.

 

Kurt presses another finger in--it’s harder than the first. He has no way to gauge like he could with his own body, what might be too much or what Blaine can handle. But Blaine is nodding and his hand is moving faster. He gasps and turns his face into Kurt’s shoulder, body all restless movement. Kurt strokes the soft space behind Blaine’s balls with his thumb, where it’s hot and wet, soft and from the sound of Blaine’s whimpers, sensitive.

 

But something changes when he adds another finger at Blaine’s nod. His body tenses, even when his hips and hand don’t still. Kurt kisses at his brow which is lined with concentration. Blaine catches his mouth in a kiss when Kurt starts to ask.

 

The thing is that Blaine’s body seems to be getting more tight instead of less. Blaine’s body has always had a way of tensing right before his comes, a tightening that originates in his pelvis, taut stomach and then thighs and then arms tight around Kurt, or fingers flexed around whatever his hands are holding.

 

This isn’t that.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt says. He stills his hand.

 

“No, no,” Blaine insists. He moves against him, fingers gripping his cock.

 

“Blaine, honey,” Kurt says, kissing his temple in apology, sliding his fingers out as slowly as he can. He doesn’t miss the way Blaine winces.

 

“It’s okay,” Blaine says as he rolls toward him, kisses him. He’s shaking.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt says as he pulls away, “does this feel good?”

 

“I...” Blaine says and looks away, “I’m sure it will, just--”

 

“We don’t have to,” Kurt offers softly.

 

“But I’m ready,” Blaine insists.

 

“It doesn’t have to be _now_ , right? Just because you’re ready? I’m not saying no, I just want to be sure you know… we’ve never done anything like this before. It’s okay to change your mind. We--” Kurt says, his voice breaking, “we have time. We can take our time. This isn’t like last time at the hotel.”

 

Blaine swallows. His eyes stay on Kurt’s. Finally, he speaks. “I want to be ready. It just… it doesn’t feel right?”

 

“Okay,” Kurt says.

 

“I’ve never… I’ve never tried more than two fingers,” he confesses.

 

“I haven’t either,” Kurt offers. Blaine’s palms sweep up and down his sides.

 

“Blaine, I want--I just want to make love to you,” he says, leaving a kiss on each of Blaine’s cheekbones. “If you want, we’ll keep trying, we’ll take all the time in the world. Please don’t think that just because you said you were ready, means it has to be right now.”

 

“Kiss me,” Blaine breathes, fingers tangling in his hair. “Kiss me and we’ll see.”

 

~*~

 

Kurt kisses him, softly at first then with increasing heat. They’ve both gone soft over the course of the conversation. Blaine tries to focus on the moment, rather than the maybe. Lets his body feel the pleasure of Kurt’s mouth, then of his gentle hands. Against his thigh, Kurt’s cock is hot. Blaine touches it lightly, running his fingers up and down the length, feasting on the soft sighs from Kurt’s mouth.

 

“Tell me what you want,” Kurt insists in whispers against his mouth.

 

“ _You_.”

 

He hitches himself up, lining their mouths. He thinks of Kurt’s question -- if he remembered when they started having sex -- and thinks of their first time together. Blaine lays on his side, mouth trembling on Kurt’s, their bodies touching from their mouths to their thighs. He wraps his hand around Kurt and starts to jack him slowly, carefully.

 

“Remember how we did this--”

 

“The first time,” Kurt finishes for him, gasping and closing his eyes.

 

Blaine stops for a moment, reaches for more lube. It’s cold against their fevered skin, but the sudden slide where it had been tacky sends something delicious pulsing through his body.

 

“I was so scared,” he confesses. They whisper and move, breath shared between open mouth kisses.

 

“ _You_?” Kurt says, his voice pleasure shocked but incredulous.“You mean m--”

 

Blaine tightens his grip on an upstroke, palms over the head of Kurt’s dick and feels it throb. Kurt’s fingers dig bruises into Blaine’s hip when he comes, Blaine following him with a laughing smile and a deep love cracking through his heart.

 

~*~

 

They tremble down together, aftershocks like ebbing water, leaving them heavy limbed and cooling in the wake. Blaine uses his undershirt to wipe them both off before sliding his leg between Kurt’s and snuggling in.

 

Kurt shivers a little, and uses his toes to hook the blanket from the foot of the bed, maneuvering it over them until they’re tucked up warm underneath it, bodies still plastered together.

 

“I never realized--” he starts. “I remember now, you telling me how nervous you were.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Blaine keeps his head tucked into Kurt’s neck. Kurt dances his fingers up and down Blaine’s shoulder.

 

“I guess I just remember you being more confident.”

 

Blaine yawns. “It was mostly all show.”

 

“I begin to see,” Kurt says wryly. He feels a pang in his chest though where the words register a deeper meaning. Earlier, he asked Blaine if he remembered when they started making love, what it had been like for him. Because he remembers it so differently. Blaine leading, Blaine making it safe, making Kurt feel safe.

 

Just words, he thinks, memories that paint a picture--himself taking and letting Blaine lead.

 

He’s never not loved Blaine; he’ll never regret any moment of it either. And maybe it was never wrong, the way they acted with each other, even if he can see now how it might not have worked. Or how it might have worked better, how much more he could have been giving Blaine. Well… maybe not more. Maybe just _better_.

 

Blaine in his arms is the safest he’s ever felt. It’s the most connected and centered and together with him, Kurt feels the most _himself_.  

 

He thinks of the white blanket of snow and the spark colours of Christmas lights. It’s coming to him then, the certainty of how hard he’ll fight for this. For them. How indelible the script of Blaine’s name and love are on his heart

 

“Do you remember the promises you made when you gave me that ring?”

 

“Yes.” Blaine’s body tenses a little.

 

“I’m sorry.” Kurt kisses the top of Blaine’s head.

 

“What?” Blaine leans up on an elbow. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who broke--”

 

“No, no,” Kurt shushes him with kisses that fall apart with his own smile. “I’m sorry I never made you promises like those.”

 

“Isn’t loving me a kind of promise though?”

 

“Yes,” Kurt says. He looks into Blaine’s eyes, tawn honeyed and bright bright bright with that love. His chest and heart are filled with light. “Love is its own promise. And I do love you. But--”

 

“But?” Blaine prompts.

 

He never planned it like this. His life, his love. Not anyway this happened, he’d not dreamt of it.

 

This isn’t a dream, them together. It’s better than any dream, far outside his own imagination. It’s real.

 

“Will you marry me?”

 

Blaine freezes.

 

“I… I want to make you those same promises,” Kurt says. He kisses Blaine’s nose, tries to outweigh fear with hope. “Let’s see if I can remember them.”

 

He holds up his thumb. “To always love you… and I will,” he starts. He ticks them off on his fingers. “I promise, promise that from now on, I will always answer your call. I’m so sorry I let you down.”

 

Blaine nods with wide, wet eyes and Kurt continues. “I already bake you cookies all the time, but I’ll promise to make you that dark chocolate raspberry cake you love twice a year.”

 

He smiles tremblingly and tries for something flirtatious even though his heart is pounding. “I already kiss you everywhere, and will, anywhere, any time.”

 

“H-how about,” Blaine says, licking his lips, “would you kiss me now? Because I’m kind of freaking out.”

 

“And kissing me will help?”

 

“Kissing you always helps,” Blaine manages. He’s trembling, and Kurt discovers through their kiss, he is too.

 

“Did I miss anything?” Kurt asks, pulling back with a sigh. A tear streaks from the corner of Blaine’s eye toward his ear.

 

“Oh yes!” Kurt says, pulling himself together. “I know you’re not perfect. Maybe more now than before--and I don’t mean that badly. I… I think that I probably idealized you, even when we were at our closest.”

 

“This,” he says, putting his hand on Blaine’s chest, over his heart, “I feel like I know you even better now, the _real_ you.”

 

“The verdict is good?” Blaine tries to joke. His voice is shaking, but his smile is growing wider.

 

“I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know all of your imperfections, and loving you even more. Even when you frustrate me, and when we fight, and hopefully when you forgive me for being a bitch because we both know I can be.” He twinkles a smile.

 

“You forgot two,” Blaine says. His face so bright now, bright light that’s shining right through Kurt because he knows now what Blaine’s answer will be. “To defend me whenever I am wrong--”

 

“What? You’re ever wrong?” Kurt jokes.

 

“And--” Blaine says, looking away, then back, shyly, “to surprise me.”

 

“Haven’t I?”

 

They smile at each other, and then Blaine kisses him, so sweetly it hurts a little.

 

“So?” Kurt can’t help himself.

 

“So….” Blaine says. He does a little shimmy underneath him. “Would it surprise you if I say yes?”

 

“Blaine,” Kurt starts to cry, “you’ll never stop surprising me.”

 

~*~

 

They stay like that, trading shocked and worshipping kisses, for long minutes. The room is bright and under the blankets, heart to heart, they are so warm.

 

“I really wasn’t expecting that,” Blaine says.

 

“Neither was I,” Kurt confesses. “I mean… I knew we were forever -- that I was saying forever -- when we got back together. I just wasn’t planning… oh!”

 

“Oh?”

 

Kurt hops out of bed, struggling a little with the blankets. Blaine watches, both amused and curious when Kurt streaks past the curtain, still fully nude. He hears some banging and a curse coming from what he thinks is the kitchen.

 

“Okay,” Kurt says. He’s flushed and smiling adorably the way he does with scrunched eyes when he ducks back in. “I… I can’t believe I did this all wrong--”

 

“No, no.”

 

Blaine sits up. “Don’t you ruin my proposal, this--” he says, holding out his hand and pulling Kurt back onto the bed, “this is perfect.”

 

Kurt lets Blaine kiss him for a moment before he pulls away.

 

“Well, no proposal is perfect without a ring. And, _personally_ , I can’t think of anything that would pair a gum wrapper promise any better than a fashionable,” he says as he tugs Blaine’s hand up, “yellow, cliché ridden, twist tie, shotgun and probably hideous but overtly sentimental ring.”

 

He loops the twist tie around Blaine’s ring finger gently, shaping the ends into a crude and lopsided bow shape.

 

“Kurt,” Blaine says, looking up at him with that sort of adoring, endearing look that’s so quintessentially him.

 

“I know it’s cheesy and ugly--”

 

“Shut up,” Blaine says. He looks down, traces the shape with his index finger. “I love it. Don’t talk about my engagement ring like that.”

 

Blaine tilts his face up and cups Kurt’s face with a shaking hand, kisses him so deeply he feels like he’s forgotten to breathe and says, “My imperfect, cake making, romantic and surprising fiancé made that for me.”

 

“Fiancé,” Kurt says with wonder. Blaine tugs him down, tugs Kurt’s body over his. He runs his foot up Kurt’s calf and smiles wickedly when he feels the comforting weight of Kurt’s arousal and muscles on him.

 

“Fiancé?” He teases, fingers fluttering along Kurt’s collarbone. “Surprise me more?”

 

Kurt smiles and lets their lips meet, lets love wash over them, tumbling them again and again until they’re wrecked, trembling in the tumult of tide waters. In the ebbing they lay, hands held tightly enough that Blaine’s ring leaves pressure indents on the inside of Kurt’s finger. Blearily he thinks of his own ring, down in a special box in his dresser, and is so, so thankful, deep in his chest, that somehow, through a chance hello on a staircase, through this past year, and into this moment, to have Blaine, his amazing friend and one true love, in his life. As his fiancé.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
